VM Manager – libvirt
libvirt provider for VM Manager. It manages the QEMU/KVM domains libvirt already knows about, on this computer or on another one over SSH, by running virsh. There is no native binding and nothing to compile.
Requirements
virsh (the libvirt client): macOS brew install libvirt; Debian and Ubuntu apt install libvirt-clients; Fedora dnf install libvirt-client. The extension looks on PATH and in the usual install folders; set virsh program in the cluster settings for anything else. The hypervisor side (libvirt with its QEMU driver) must run where the domains are.
Connecting
Add a cluster of type libvirt and choose a Connection:
| Choice |
URI |
For |
| This computer, my user |
qemu:///session |
Your own domains, no privileges. The only choice on macOS (Homebrew starts the session daemon by itself). |
| This computer, system-wide |
qemu:///system |
Linux: needs access to libvirt (the libvirt group). |
| Another computer over SSH |
qemu+ssh://user@host/system |
Remote KVM hosts. Uses ssh with a key or the agent: virsh cannot ask for a password here, and an unknown host key is an error (connect once in a terminal to accept it). |
| Custom URI |
any |
Anything virsh understands. |
For SSH, ControlMaster auto (with ControlPersist) in ~/.ssh/config makes it much faster: every refresh runs a few virsh commands.
What it does
- Domains across the host, with state (running, paused, shut off, saved), CPU and memory, MAC and IP addresses (DHCP leases, or the guest agent when the domain has the channel).
- Power: start, shut down (ACPI, then offers Power Off when the guest ignores it; the wait is the Shut down timeout setting), reboot, force stop, reset.
- Details page: disks and CD/DVD drives (with sizes), network adapters, and live CPU, memory, disk and network charts.
- Consoles: the VNC display (and its password), and the serial console (a pty on this computer, a unix socket, or a TCP port; over SSH only the TCP port).
- Media: insert and eject an ISO in a CD/DVD drive, on a running domain too.
- Snapshots: take, revert and delete (
virsh snapshot-*, libvirt's internal snapshots). A snapshot of a running domain includes its memory.
- Delete: removes the domain, its UEFI variables and snapshot metadata, and with Delete disks its disks: volumes of a storage pool through libvirt, other files by deleting them (this computer only).
Not included yet
- Creating, editing and cloning domains: use
virt-install, virt-manager, Cockpit or virsh define, and the domain shows up here.
- Templates, port forwards, passthrough, SPICE displays.
- Uptime and CPU on macOS come from the QEMU process (libvirt has no cgroups there).
Limits worth knowing
- libvirt refuses snapshots of a UEFI domain whose firmware variables are a raw file (the usual case, including every
firmware='efi' domain with the Homebrew firmware): internal snapshots of a VM with pflash based firmware require QCOW2 nvram format. The extension says so; domains without UEFI snapshot fine.
- The serial console of a pty needs the domain on this computer.
Status
Tested against a real libvirt 12.9 with QEMU 11.1 on Apple Silicon (HVF, qemu:///session): listing, start, stats, details, VNC banner, serial, media, snapshots with and without memory, shut down timeout, deletion. Not yet run against a Linux qemu:///system, over qemu+ssh://, or on a KVM host.
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